Social Media

Chat with Meebo's Seth Sternberg: Open Platform's Perfect Storm?

We heard about the Meebo Platform API launching last night, which shouldn't surprise many, considering the current trend for developer's platforms. But I got a chance to talk to CEO Seth Sternberg over at Meebo, to get a bit more in depth information regarding the Platform, how it can be used, and what kind of advertising network to expect from its implementation.

Meebo started out some years ago with a few goals in mind, and a three-step process on how to reach its goals. Starting with a great foundation, the online Meebo IM client frees so many users from needing to install software, enables them to become mobile for multi-computer use, and generally avoids those pesky firewalls that keep us from using tools like AIM.

Then we saw the advent of MeeboMe and MeeboRooms, which essentially allowed for the exportation of Meebo tools to other websites. This was not only good for end users, but good for branding as well. In the past few months we've seen more than a few brands take advantage of the mobility and exportability of MeeboRooms, as they encourage communication between users in a very custom and flexible manner.

After all this exportation, we now land at the third step in this whole process: importation. People want to bring more applications into thier Meebo world, which has an infinite number of possibilities for the real time communication that instant messaging provides. This can be used in a sort of shared-screen manner, meaning that multiple meebo chat participants could be able to view the same screen at the same time, with all having access to browsing. This makes it easier to surf the web with someone, while still maintaining individual control over their computer and its actions.

So realistically speaking, this could be used by two people searching for a place to have dinner. Instead of talking on the phone, or sharing links over IM, why not share surfing capabilities? This is a concept that really began to take off with web-based apps like Writely (now Google Docs) and Zoho, as they enable multiple users to edit one document. We sort of see this occurring with wikis, but Meebo wants to make this type of co-activity a real-time event.

Seth mentioned that while he's unsure of the types of applications that will be developed in response to the new platform, he's hoping that it will spur the cultivation of this concept of real-time action via the web. This would in fact push a lot of activity towards the synchronous, as opposed to asynchronous.

And what Seth means by this is that web development over the past 10 years has created rather solitary ways in which to experience the Internet. Yes, we have pockets of interactivity, and social networks allow us to be social, but it's still in a solitary manner.

Looking at your basic email client, or even Facebook, you'll see that messages come in, and you check them at your leisure. It's social, but the sender of that message doesn't have to be present when you read the email. Likewise, you can reply whenever you want, whether its 2 a.m. or a week later, not having to think about time zones, or waking a person up. This all lends to the asynchronous aspects of web life. Handy, but not suitable for all activity, and certainly has room to be improved upon.

With current technology, there's no reason why real time interaction can't be supported online. And a flexible IM client such as Meebo is a perfect place for this type of execution. It could be, by far, one of the most useful implementations of a Platform API we've seen this year.

And the immediate (almost) inclusion of an ad network makes it that much more appealing to developers. A 50/50 split with developers will enable the monetization of applications (which must first be approved) from very early on in the process. So for a game developer who would need several players online at once, having an application through meebo means that the developer now has immediate access to players, and can earn a bit of extra cash. Now the developer gets to focus on the actual development of the game.

We've seen this to a large extent with Facebook's platform, where developers now have immediate access to a very large network, which can be leveraged for its user base, and the developer now has more time to build upon this, as opposed to creating an entire site and luring in users. And the advertising networks that have been cropping up for Facebook apps also speaks to the necessity of some sort of revenue-sharing model, which works best when it comes directly from the provider of the platform. Facebook knows this too. So Meebo is smart to offer this early on, as it allows for uniformity and control of the ads that will be displayed throughout the applications.

I asked Seth what will happen to the control of ads, from a developer's standpoint. Do they have any say in the types of ads that will be showing alongside their applications? Seth said that Meebo's dedication to the user experience pretty much trumps all, and that it will be doing most of the legwork when it comes to ad distribution across its network.

There will always be those rare circumstances where a brand may have an application, and existing advertisers. These are the times when everyone can hear the money talk, right? As we've seen with MeeboRooms, the chat room provider has a certain level of dedication to advertisers as well, but incorporates most ads in a manner that is appealing to the end users (as custom skins, for example).

So what do you think? Is Meebo launching its platform in all the right ways?

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